Lesson 36: SPLIT Function Exercises

SPLIT Function

Practice SPLIT in Google Sheets: break names, product codes and routes into separate columns, learn what split_by_each does, and split a whole column at once.

Task 1 of 4

Split the full name in A2 into first and last name. The formula goes in B2 and spills into C2.

Tip: while typing a formula, click a cell or drag across cells to insert references. Press Enter to check, and Tab to accept a function suggestion.

Breaking text into columns with SPLIT

SPLIT cuts text at a delimiter and spills each piece into its own cell, left to right.

=SPLIT(text, delimiter, [split_by_each], [remove_empty_text])

split_by_each defaults to TRUE, which treats every character of the delimiter as a separate delimiter. SPLIT(A2, " to ") therefore splits at every space, "t" and "o". Set it to FALSE to split only at the exact text " to ".
remove_empty_text defaults to TRUE, so two delimiters in a row don't leave a blank cell.
Pieces that look like numbers become numbers, so "0427" turns into 427 and loses its leading zero. If the zeros matter, rebuild the code with TEXT or use REGEXEXTRACT instead.
To split a whole column at once, wrap it: =ARRAYFORMULA(SPLIT(A2:A7, "@")).